Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory

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In this second edition ofBeginning Theory, the variety of approaches, theorists, and technical language is lucidly and expertly unraveled and explained, and allows readers to develop their own ideas once first principles have been grasped. Expanded and updated from the original edition first published in 1995, Peter Barry has incorporated all of the recent developments in literary theory, adding two new chapters covering the emergent Eco-criticism and the re-emerging Narratology.

Peter Barry is Reader in English at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

Acknowledgements

x

Preface to the second edition

xii

Introduction

1

(1)

About this book

1

(5)

Approaching theory

6

(3)

Stop and think: reviewing your study of literature to date

8

(1)

My own 'stock-taking'

9

(2)

Theory before `theory' - liberal humanism

11

(28)

The history of English studies

11

(5)

Stop and think

11

(5)

Ten tenets of liberal humanism

16

(5)

Literary theorising from Aristotle to Leavis -some key moments

21

(10)

Liberal humanism in practice

31

(1)

The transition to `theory'

32

(2)

Some recurrent ideas in critical theory

34

(2)

Selected reading

36

(3)

Structuralism

39

(22)

Structuralist chickens and liberal humanist eggs

39

(2)

Signs of the fathers - Saussure

41

(5)

Stop and think

45

(1)

The scope of structuralism

46

(3)

What structuralist critics do

49

(1)

Structuralist criticism: examples

50

(10)

Stop and think

53

(2)

Stop and think

55

(2)

Stop and think

57

(3)

Selected reading

60

(1)

Post-structuralism and deconstruction

61

(20)

Some theoretical differences between structuralism and post-structuralism

61

(4)

Post-structuralism - life on a decentred planet

65

(5)

Stop and think

68

(2)

Structuralism and post-structuralism - some practical differences

70

(3)

What post-structuralist critics do

73

(1)

Deconstruction: an example

73

(6)

Selected reading

79

(2)

Postmodernism

81

(15)

What is postmodernism? What was modernism?

81

(4)

`Landmarks' in postmodernism: Habermas, Lyotard and Baudrillard

85

(6)

Stop and think

90

(1)

What postmodernist critics do

91

(1)

Postmodernist criticism: an example

91

(3)

Selected reading

94

(2)

Psychoanalytic criticism

96

(25)

Introduction

96

(2)

How Freudian interpretation works

98

(4)

Stop and think

101

(1)

Freud and evidence

102

(3)

What Freudian psychoanalytic critics do

105

(1)

Freudian psychoanlaytic criticism: examples

105

(3)

Lacan

108

(7)

What Lacanian critics do

115

(1)

Lacanian criticism: an example

115

(3)

Selected reading

118

(3)

Feminist criticism

121

(18)

Feminism and feminist criticism

121

(3)

Feminist criticism and the role of theory

124

(2)

Feminist criticism and language

126

(4)

Feminist criticism and psychoanalysis

130

(4)

Stop and think

133

(1)

What feminist critics do

134

(1)

Feminist criticism: an example

134

(2)

Selected reading

136

(3)

Lesbian/gay criticism

139

(17)

Lesbian and gay theory

139

(1)

Lesbian feminism

140

(3)

Queer theory

143

(5)

What lesbian/gay critics do

148

(2)

Stop and think

149

(1)

Lesbian/gay criticism: an example

150

(3)

Selected reading

153

(3)

Marxist criticism

156

(16)

Beginnings and basics of Marxism

156

(2)

Marxist literary criticism: general

158

(1)

`Leninist' Marxist criticism

159

(2)

`Engelsian' Marxist criticism

161

(2)

The present: the influence of Althusser

163

(4)

Stop and think

166

(1)

What Marxist critics do

167

(1)

Marxist criticism: an example

168

(2)

Selected reading

170

(2)

New historicism and cultural materialism

172

(20)

New historicism

172

(2)

New and old historicisms - some differences

174

(1)

New historicism and Foucault

175

(2)

Advantages and disadvantages of new historicism

177

(2)

Stop and think

178

(1)

What new historicists do

179

(1)

New historicism: an example

179

(3)

Cultural materialism

182

(2)

How is cultural materialism different from new historicism

184

(3)

Stop and think

186

(1)

What cultural materialist critics do

187

(1)

Cultural materialism: an example

187

(2)

Selected reading

189

(3)

Postcolonial criticism

192

(11)

Background

192

(2)

Postcolonial reading

194

(5)

Stop and think

198

(1)

What postcolonial critics do

199

(1)

Postcolonialist criticism: an example

200

(1)

Selected reading

201

(2)

Stylistics

203

(19)

Stylistics: a theory or a practice?

203

(2)

A brief historical account: from rhetoric, to philology, to linguistics, to stylistics, to new stylistics